Saturday, October 09, 2004

I've heard that Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) has been calling their members in support of Stephen Baker for Hennepin County Judge. Did anyone reading this blog get this call?

Do they want Baker because he will routinely deny young women who want a judicial bypass from the both parent notification requirement on abortion?

Now I've heard Baker talked up among Republican Party activists - but I wanted to find out if he was a judge candidate in the tradition of Kathleen Blatz or in the
tradition of Greg Wersal. I've still got that question.

Commissioner Linda Koblick is listed as a supporter of Baker's.... I'm wondering if she knew about the MCCL calls when she gave her name to his campaign. It seems that some other Republican moderates are supporting Burke.

It's rather odd that Hennepin County Commissioner Randy Johnson is listed as supporting both Burke and Baker.

Here are Burke's supporters.

Former Vice-President of the United States Walter F. Mondale

Former Minnesota Governor Arne H. Carlson

Former Minnesota Attorney General Warren Spannus

Anoka County Attorney Robert M.A. Johnson

Dakota County Attorney James C. Backstrom

2004 Hennepin County Judicial Candidates

Thomas Sheran (3rd place in Primaries)

Jay Quam (4th place in Primaries)

Chairman, Hennepin County Board of Commissioners Randy Johnson

Former U.S. Attorney & Former Hennepin County Judge Andrew W. Danielson

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Stonewall vs Log Cabin

That debate is occuring over on the mn-politics-discuss list again.

Imagine a political party...where they want to work with you...to further your individual rights.

If this is the case, there is NO need for a Stonewall DFL. I don't think that's true unfortunately. There are candidates like Rebecca Otto - who benefited from a lot of help from the gay community in Stillwater, only to have her turn around and vote for the Bachmann amendment. I'm not sure what her political calculation was - did she really think the anti-gay voters in that district were going to turn around and support her?

What's really pathetic with Otto is she has the nerve to send her supporters emails where she will rant about her opponent being obsessed with the gay marriage issue. Well if that's the case, why didn't she vote against the bill.

And yes, I've seen Eric Mitchell at Stonewall's booth at Pride.... That's good that the DFL send people to that booth - it's still not the same as a DFL booth.

Interestingly enough there WAS a county DFL booth at Rochester Pride - and they were promoting the local legislative candidate - while Stonewall was promoting Kerry. I also remember being struck by the fact that neither the Stonewall nor HRC booth promoted candidates Teresa Daly or Patty Wetterling. According to Mike Krause's recent "Gay Agenda" Lavender column, HRC didn't mention Daly or Wetterling at their dinner. I often don't think too much of Krause's column, but this one hit the nail on the head: you'd think that since Minnesota is a swing state, HRC would have had a high profile political speaker, and would have done more than making endless appeals for money for HRC.

I did appreciate it when HRC and OutFront co-sponsored an event to organize opposition to the Bachmann amendment. I'm glad I went to that event, and I'm just as glad I passed on this dinner - which sounds like a collosal waste of time.

This year, HRC has set a target of registering 500,000 GLBT Americans
to turn out and vote, especially in important swing states. That at least will blunt the four million Christian evangelicals the Bush Campaign hopes to mobilize by Election Day.

To get the job done in Minnesota, HRC plans to rely heavily on OutFront Minnesota, the state's GLBT advocacy organization.

Yet, after many years at the Capitol in St. Paul, OutFront has failed to build an effective grassroots organization that truly can challenge legislators with more than appeals to their conscience.

When antigay elements threaten, OutFront has shown it can organize a large rally at the Capitol, but the total number of dues-paying members in the entire state would be less than the numbers assembled for the HRC Dinner.

I'm not sure whether or not I'm currently a "dues paying member" of OutFront. I do contribute to them, sometimes, but remain disastisfied with the return on investment. My biggest concern is I see little evidence that they make sincere efforts to meet with and lobby Republicans.

Cheryl Jacques, HRC's new President, gave the only address that could
be called the keynote (during the 90 minutes from the time salads were served to the time entrées showed up at the table).

Jacques, however, was not well briefed on Minnesota politics. She missed an opportunity both to inspire and to show some sophistication on HRC's part.

Despite HRC's focus on federal-level legislation, and its presence on Capitol Hill, Jacques did not even mention Teresa Daly or Patty Wetterling, two Democratic women who are within striking distance of knocking off two antigay Republican Congressmen: John Kline and Mark Kennedy.

As I said before, HRC and Stonewall were not promoting these candidates at Pride either. It's an opportunity lost.

Jacques compounded the error by recognizing nearly every out GLBT
politician in the state, including the three gay men on the Minneapolis City Council, but did not mention the straight political allies who were in attendance.

The oversight was particularly noticeable for House Minority Leader Matt Entenza and House Minority Whip Margaret Anderson Kelliher, who organized the passionate and principled debate in the Minnesota House against a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

I disagree that Entenza did that much.... If the house DFL were serious on this, they could have made opposition to the bill the official position - notably they did not.

Ideally, Jacques and HRC would have invited the 15 to 20 candidates
for the Legislature who could give back control to the DFL, and end the Republican witch-hunt against gay and lesbian Minnesotans, to stand with her onstage, and be recognized by the crowd.

Jacques should have invited the house members who voted against this bill to be recognised. There were 3 Republicans who deserve some praise for their votes opposing this amendment: Ray Cox, Jim Rhodes, and Ron Erhardt.

At the beginning of her remarks, Jacques argued powerfully that the
GLBT community should accept only full marriage rights, and that civil unions are not enough. She's right.

But in her advocacy for Kerry, Jacques failed to level with her audience about the fact that he does not support gay marriage, but only civil unions.

Jacques talked proudly, and rightly so, about HRC's impressive 50-48 victory in the U.S. Senate on a federal marriage amendment, without mentioning that the two votes not cast in that debate were from Kerry and John Edwards.

Kerry and Edwards didn't show - and this was AFTER they received HRC endorsement. This was a slap in the face to HRC.

There is no doubt about which major party presidential team will
advance the cause of gay civil rights. Kerry has an outstanding voting record on GLBT issues, and he will oppose a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

But he supports state constitutional amendments - making those harder to defeat.

But it was hypocritical for Jacques to stake out her ground so firmly
for full marriage rights, and then give Kerry a pass.

Instead, Jacques should have told us all to march into the voting booth, hold our noses if we must, and vote for Kerry, because he will be so much better than George Bush for our community.

That would have been honest, and it would have been received better by those political activists gathered for the HRC Dinner.

Unfortunately, Jacques's speech was not the end of a disappointing night with no small amount of condescension toward the audience.

Yup, gay people aren't stupid. Kerry's campaign loves to make this issue about gays having trouble with Kerry over his gay marriage position - and that isn't it - it's the flip flopping over this. Kerry clearly tells different audiences different things on this issue. Bush does too rather ironically.

Vanessa Kerry, the candidate's daughter, gave a speech that was essentially: "Vote for my father, because I have had a rainbow ribbon on my backpack for over a year."

EY: Oh gag me.... I'm really glad I didn't go.

Throw in a quick song from Carole King, and a brief appearance by one of the actors from Queer as Folk, among the almost constant appeals for money, and you get the idea of how the night went down.

Perhaps it is asking too much for HRC to have a more strategically significant (and much shorter) event in the weeks just before the election.

The purpose of the dinner, after all, is to raise money for political campaigns mostly out of the state, and to give major corporations a chance to parade their diversity policies in front of the GLBT community.

Perhaps it is asking too much to have a well-known political speaker at one of the largest HRC events in the nation, in one of the more important swing states in the election.

I am a member of HRC, and I will continue to be a member of HRC. Whether I go to the dinner again will remain to be seen.

But I certainly think our GLBT community in Minnesota needs to wake up, and get serious about what it will take to be a more respected political force within our own state, as well as in Washington, D.C.

This it was the Democrats, who Eva is blasting, who blocked the Amendment, not the Republicans she works so tirelessly for. According to my calculations, 87% of the Republicans voted for the Constitutional Amendment, 81% of the Democrats voted against the Amendment, yet Eva criticizes the Democrats.

I'm NOT blasting all the Democrats - I'm blasting the Democrats who supported this nonsense. In Minnesota, when the Bachmann amendment came up, Minority Leader Entenza was in public opposing this amendment and talking about what a distraction it was - in private, as I understand it, he advised first termer Rebecca Otto to vote in
FAVOR of the amendment. What a pal Entenza is. Certainly it's on the record that the house dfl caucus took no official position on the amendment, and I recall at the rally Karen Clark spoke of being angry with house democrats she had considered friends voting for this amendment. I doubt she was referring to Otembra....

I just don't get it. Eva and the Log Cabin Republicans give time, energy and support to these Republicans, who would take their rights away, then she complains how the Democrats don't do enough to protect her and other gays from the Republicans she supports.

Give me a break Dan... Log Cabin Republicans in Minnesota urged LCR on the national level to withhold endorsement from Bush. We did that before Pride in June. Log Cabin Republicans on the national level withheld endorsement from Bush last month. I've had an oped in the star tribune publically criticizing the efforts by the Bush administration and some in the Republican party to push this amendment. For that, I've gotten grief in Republican circles....

You know what. I support Gay Marriage for those Gays who vote Democratic, but for those gays who are stupid enough to vote Republican, I say you deserve what you get.

I am very disappointed to read the Republican
National Committee is behind the attrocious flyer
claimed that "liberals" would ban the bible and allow gay marriage. Does this flyer mean that conservatives will replace the constitution with the bible?

Minnesota Republican Party Chair, Ron Eibensteiner, RNC Committee Members Jack Meek and Evie Axdahl, have the obligation to publically commit to deep sixing this mailing in Minnesota (if it hasn't already gone out). If it has, they should apologise for insulting the intelligence of Minnesota voters - especially conservative christians. This mailing suggests that the Republican Party thinks people of faith are ignorant bigots.

When I met you at the Log Cabin Republicans Washington Flyin in May of 2000, I had thought you were genuinely committed to inclusion within the Republican Party. I am very disappointed that the voices of inclusion within the Republican National Committee failed to stop this mailer.

I also would like to call on President Bush and Vice President Cheney to explicitly repudiate this mailer. In 2000 the NAACP did a horrendous ad claiming that Bush was responsible for the horrendous murder of James Byrd because Bush opposed hate crimes legislation. That ad was demogoguery of the worst sort - but it was put out by the NAACP - NOT the Democratic National Committee. This ad was put out by the Republican National Committee. Now the RNC has the obligation to condemn this ad and to fire the
staffers responsible for putting it out.

The question is: is the Republican Party the party of the people that graced the podium in New York: Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain, or the party of Jerry "gays caused America to be attacked on 911" Falwell, Senator Rick "man on dog sex" Santorum, Alan "gays are selfish hedonists" Keyes. Pandering to bigotry is a double edged sword. I encourage you to take the high road in this campaign.

Eva Young
President
Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota

I posted this letter on Republicannationalcommittee@yahoogroups.com, and I've already been banned from posting on that list.

Sen. Robert Byrd (search), D-W.Va., delivered a statement on the Senate floor Thursday criticizing a Republican National Committee flyer sent en masse to West Virginians, which he said suggests that Democratic officials want to ban the Bible.

Byrd sees the flyer as the "latest in a pattern of distortions from the RNC and the Republican leadership" and points to the situation in Iraq as evidence.

The RNC is "spreading this tripe to smear Democrats, and the president ought to demand that the Republican National Committee apologize to the people of West Virginia," Byrd said. "The political hacks behind that blasphemous flyer should be required to re-read the Book of Exodus. There is no free pass from the commandments in an election year."

Republicans "must think that spreading nonsense about banning the Bible is a sure-fire way to get votes in an election year. But the people of West Virginia are smarter than that."

Byrd said truth is "tailored to fit the occasion" this election year, and "nowhere is this more evident than on the subject of Iraq. Whether it be weapons of mass destruction or an imminent threat or mushroom clouds, the reason for the war changes faster than the weather. Talk about flip-flops!"

Yup, this flyer shows that the Republican National Committee thinks the people of West Virginia and Arkinsas are stupid bigots.

Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota Introduces new Political Action Committee

MINNEAPOLIS- Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota are excited to announce the creation of Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota Political Action Committee, a
new organization aimed at supporting and encouraging gay and gay-friendly Republicans to run for public office.

"The best way to make the GOP in Minnesota a party of inclusion is to support and attract tolerant Republicans to not only run for office, but to get involved in the party process, such as working on the platform committee," chapter President Eva Young said.

"There is an old saw that goes, 'Politics is about who shows up.' Well, the religious right has been showing up and supporting candidates for office that want to
treat the GLBT community as second-class citizens," Young said. "Now is the time for fair-minded Republicans to show up and support friendly candidates who will work for gay GLBT equality."

The Executive Committee chose Mark Hanson of Minneapolis to be the Chair of Log Cabin Minnesota PAC. Hanson looks forward to his new job. "We want to let socially tolerant Republicans to know that we will support them in any way we can."

Log Cabin Minnesota PAC is already involved in the campaign of David Dayhoff, a candidate for the Minneapolis School Board. Dayhoff supports Out 4 Good, a program promoting a safe learning environment for GLBT students, families and teachers, as well as comprehensive sex education as opposed to "abstinence-only ­ condoms don’t work" education.

"We are excited to be helping David and we hope to see him on the school board come November," said Hanson.

Mark Hanson of Minneapolis is a Minnesota native and works as an accountant for a major nonprofit. He is active in Lutheran church and music activities, enjoys
the friends and allies he meets in his political activities, and can be seen pedaling his bike around the local lakes and rivers. After many years of
watching 'Almanac' and actually caring about what people said, Mark is excited about his new role with the LCRMN PAC.

Log Cabin Republicans is a nationwide grassroots organization working for inclusion of GLBT persons in the Party of Lincoln and supporting gay-friendly Republican candidates for public office.